DiNapoli: MTA faces $12 billion gap

The New York region’s transit systems, including the subways and Metro-North Railroad, could fall $12 billion short of the money needed to continue returning to good shape in the next five-year capital plan, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli concluded in a report released Thursday.

“Millions of New Yorkers rely on the (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) transit system and while it is in far better condition than it was 30 years ago, much more needs to be done,” DiNapoli in a press release. “The MTA has to find a way to finance improvements without putting the financial burden on riders.”

The subway system uses some signal equipment from the 1930s, and subway cars that are 40 years old. Metro-North needs work at Grand Central Terminal and other stations, and on the Port Jervis Line infrastructure, the report said.

DiNapoli calculated that the MTA can “reasonably expect” about $14 billion in resources for its 2015-19 capital plan. But that covers a little more than half the $26.6 billion that the nation’s largest transit agency has projected that it will need, leaving more than $12 billion in needed work unfunded.

And that does not include money for expansion projects such as the future phases of the Second Avenue Subway.

MTA spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the five-year plan will be presented to the agency’s board in September, but that MTA officials “concur with the basic parameters of the report.”

“The investments we’ve made through the capital program have spearheaded a revitalization for our transit network and are one of the main reasons we’re seeing record ridership levels today,” Anders said in an email.

DiNapoli’s report said that the MTA has brought the subway, bus and rail systems back from “the brink of collapse” with $90 billion in capital investments since 1982. But that spending still has not brought the systems up to a “state of good repair,” the report says.

That’s because the MTA has not received all the funding it has asked for from elected officials, and also because its major projects have cost more than expected, he concluded.

The East Side Access plan to bring Long Island Rail Road trains to a station being created under Grand Central, for example, is now projected to cost $10.7 billion, more than twice the initial estimate, DiNapoli said.

The five-year plan is only part of the story. Over the next 20 years, the MTA has projected it will need $105.7 billion to upgrade and maintain the tracks, stations, trains and other components of the transit systems.

Almost two-thirds of that, $68.2 billion, would be for the city’s subways and buses.

Only 80 of the 468 subway stations have been fully restored, for instance, and nearly one out of every five elevators and escalators in the subway system has aged beyond its useful life, the report said.

But the report also points to much progress. Subway cars now travel an average of 150,000 miles between break-downs, more than 15 times as much as in 1982, the report noted.

Metro-North Railroad’s plans do not put it on track to fully upgrade its systems, the report said. The railroad’s current plan is to spend $8.9 billion over 20 years. That would bring its shops and rail yards up to a state of good repair, but would leave needed work still undone in three other categories: stations and parking (including Grand Central Terminal work); Port Jervis Line infrastructure; and structures.

Its largest needs are $2.3 billion for tracks and structures and $2 billion to replenish an aging fleet of trains. Of $1.6 billion needed for work on stations, more than $600 million would go to Grand Central.

The MTA will continue to seek the needed funds, Anders said.

“Like all transit systems in America, the capital plan will always require public financial support and we look forward to a robust discussion with our elected officials and stakeholders to identify resources,” she wrote.